爲什麼睡前你老覺得餓要吃東西?大綱

If you're at all like me, you've eaten a lot of junk food late at night.

你是不是和我一樣，在晚上很晚的時候還要吃很多垃圾食品呢？

One explanation for those late-night slices of pizza or burgers has to do with alcohol, which has a disinhibiting effect that makes us crave fat and salt.

有一個解釋是，我們晚上吃的那些披薩和漢堡都含有酒精，而酒精則使我們更加渴望脂肪和鹽。

But an increasing body of research suggests that exhaustion, too, plays a role, at least in cases when people didn't get enough sleep the night before.

但是越來越多的研究表明，疲憊也會發揮作用，至少是對那些前一晚沒有充足睡眠的人。

A study in the journal Sleep in which participants were put on normal sleep or sleep-restricted schedules while their calories were carefully monitored.

《睡眠》期刊中記錄了一項實驗，參與者分別被分到正常睡眠組和限制性睡眠組，並且詳細監測了他們體內的卡路里。

Allison reports: The new study, based on blood samples, documents a novel finding: The daily rhythm of a particular endocannabinoid is altered by a lack of sleep.

阿里森報告稱：這一基於血液試樣的研究證明了一個新的發現：人體內的花生四烯酸甘油的含量會因缺乏睡眠而改變。

And these changes "could be driving intake for more palatable foods," Erin Hanlon, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago Medical Center, told us.

芝加哥醫療中心大學的神經系統科學家艾瑞森·漢龍告訴我們："而這些變化就是驅使人對美食嚮往的元兇。"

"We found that sleep restriction boosts a signal that may increase the hedonic aspect of food intake," says Hanlon.

漢龍表示："缺乏睡眠會促使人們增加對美味食物的享受。"

In other words, being sleep deprived may produce a stronger desire to eat.

換言之，睡眠不好會讓人更加想吃東西。

We're still a long way from understanding the connections between sleeplessness, stress, and, well, gluttony. But knowing that the "sleep munchies" are probably a real thing with an explainable physical cause can only help those of us trying to improve our droopy-eyed eating habits.

或許我們尚未研究清楚睡眠、壓力以及暴飲暴食之間的關係。但瞭解睡前飢餓感的原因，至少可以幫助我們改善睡眼惺忪還要吃東西的習慣。